Mob Rule
by freifraufischer
Summary: An alternate universe. Emma raised by Regina as her own daughter in Storybrooke. 28 years later Emma Mills and her son Henry have moved back home when she takes the job as the town's DA. With the curse broken and the world shifting around her, Emma has to deal with new family, including a very dangerous grandmother. The second story in the Reluctant Adventures of Emma Mills.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This is the second story in the Reluctant Adventures of Emma Mills series. An AU in which Emma never made it to the wardrobe, and instead she was taken and raised by Regina in Storybrooke. The first story in the series _Justice is Blind_ can be found in my other stories and takes place approximately over the course of season 1. This begins "season 2" but departs from canon events almost immediately._

* * *

Emma was trying to get dressed and get her bearings about her. She'd woken up in the hospital, with people talking about a cursed apple turnover. She was a rational woman, a professional with a responsible job and two ivy league degrees, it wasn't easy to just accept that the town you grew up in was populated by fairy tale characters. That apparently you were a fairy tale character.

The daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, stolen at birth and raised by the Evil Queen.

Mary Margaret Blanchard... Snow White... no she really couldn't think about it that way, at least not yet, was talking excitedly about how they had to find her father. All Emma wanted to do was go home and lock herself away and hope she'd wake up in the morning from a truly weird dream.

But her mother, or the woman who wanted desperately to be her mother, followed after her. There was a surreal encounter with the seven dwarfs and even Leroy was nice'ish to her. Apparently being Snow White's daughter outweighed how many times she'd prosecuted him for drunk and disorderly conduct.

She was actually finding the hug from David Nolan that he didn't seem to want to let go weirdly reassuring when they saw the lynch mob.

The others began debating letting her mother be killed, but Emma reacted immediately. "Henry, I need you to go to Granny's and stay there."

"But Mom..."

"I am not taking you with me while I stop your grandmother from being lynched."

She noticed Mary Margaret wince.

She stopped by her house on the way to pick up her shot gun and she got to the house on Mifflin Street just as Dr. Whale had Regina against the wall.

The clack-clack of shot gun drew the attention of some of the crowd. The shot she fired into her mother's rose bush drew everyone else's. "Get your hands off her or you'll find out exactly how good your colleagues are at taking buck shot out of your probably dead body."

She leveled the shot gun and moved through the crowd until she was standing between them and Regina.

Her mother seemed to regain confidence and stood tall behind her as if this was some sort of mayoral event. Was that a regal bearing? Was she really a queen? She held her ground and Mary Margaret came rushing up to stand beside her.

"We all want answers, but Regina's death isn't going to provide any!"

Emma was perfectly willing to let her talk the crowd down but she kept her shot gun leveled.

"Why is she protecting her? She's your daughter."

Mary Margaret had the tact not to answer for her. "Regina needs to be locked up," she glanced at Emma, "For her safety, and for ours."

Emma went along with it but mostly because it made the crowd start to calm down and disburse.

"Thank you, Emma..." Regina said quietly after they were gone.

"Don't think I'm still not pissed as hell."

"You wouldn't be you if you weren't."

Once they put Regina behind bars, her... parents?... stayed after Emma said she refused to leave her alone with half the town trying to kill her.

"Emma, you need to understand. Regina took you out of my arms... she's almost certainly got plans for you."

"Yes. Plans. Like sending me to the finest universities in the world and helping me when I was stupid enough to get pregnant while still in school. Evil."

"You don't understand Emma, she's a murder hundreds of times over."

"In some fairytale land but not here. Here she's the mayor of a small town, and I'm justice in this town. You aren't locking her up on your say so." She wasn't even sure she could accept the idea that her mother murdered anyone. But she felt a little like she was talking to crazy people. All of them.

"She is right Emma. I have killed a lot of people."

The three of them turned around and stared at Regina in the cell. "Though so have your... parents. We come from a violent world."

"No. No you don't get to pretend that we're like you!"

David launched himself at the bars before Mary Margaret caught him. "She's baiting you. Emma, you have to listen to us ..."

"No I don't."

"We're your parents."

"No. No we're going to stop this right now."

She angrily pointed at the jail cell. "You, you don't get to act like everything is normal because it sure as hell isn't." And she turned towards the woman apparently her own age, "And you don't get to waltz into my life and suddenly act like my mother. I don't need mothering, I'm 28 fucking years old, and have a child of my own. Not to mention the minor fact that I already have a mother. One I'm royally pissed at, at the moment, but a mother none the less."

Mary Margaret's heart looked like it was broken in a million pieces and behind Emma Regina smiled widely.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next two weeks Emma tried valiantly to continue on as if life was normal. It wasn't. Even she knew that. But she tried just the same. She wasn't taking Regina's phone calls, but she was keeping up a routine with Henry, and insisted that he continue his school work as soon as the school reopened. It might not be a normal town anymore but part of being a parent was maintaining a stable life for her son.

Mary Margaret had at least backed off her constant hovering, she suspected at the behest of David, who seemed to at least appreciate that some things couldn't be pushed. Still there were limits to normality. Judge Bracket turned out to be a frog and he was at least uninterested in continuing his cursed identity, and she'd turned into some sort of arbiter of what was and wasn't going to be allowed as the world shifted around them.

But law and order was going to be maintained. Elections were going to be respected. If they wanted Regina out of the mayor's office they'd have to either recall her or wait for her term to be up. And apparently people were still too afraid to organize a recall.

She knew eventually she'd have to pick up the phone, but as her android buzzed again with her mother's ring tone she slide the icon to the side to ignore the call. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

The knock belonged to David, and she gave him an easy smile. She liked Prince Charming a lot more than she'd liked David Nolan.

"Not at all. I've just been trying to figure out what to do with some of the still lost people. It appears that not everyone came over in... well in the curse." She couldn't say the Queen and she'd decided not to call her mom around the Charmings.

"We were... wondering if you might be willing to go over to the mayor's house."

Emma was surprised, "Why?"

"Well, we've been having people keep an eye on the mansion," He explained, and seeing the look on her face added, "As much for her safety as to spy on her. There have been some flashes of light from windows and some people are worried she might have gotten her magic back."

"Afraid you won't be able to bully her if she can defend herself."

David closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again, "I ... may not like Regina much. At all really. And I don't like some of the values she seems to have raised you with, but she does seem to love you. I was rather hoping, since returning the town to normalcy is so important to you, that you might be willing to at least try and talk to her. Get her to behave."

"You want me to stop the Evil Queen from going on ... what... some sort of killing rampage."

"You still don't believe she's evil do you?"

"She's my mom. Would you believe it if someone told you that your mom was secretly Hitler?"

"She admitted it to you."

"Yeah, that might be why I am willing to go along with any of this."

"Can you just talk to her, Emma? Regina is dangerous as it is, but the last thing this town needs is her dangerous and isolated."

Emma sat back in her chair. "I'll... think about it."

* * *

She'd asked Mary Margaret and David, Snow White and Prince Charming, her biological parents, she really didn't need to think about that, she'd asked them to babysit Henry for the evening. He'd jumped at the chance. If there was one person in town truly happy to live in some bizarre fairy tale it was him.

She parked her Volvo in the driveway next to her mother's Mercedes and dug slipped her key into the door of her childhood home.

"Regina?"

She was still 'mom' in her mind but she'd decided to be careful what she called this woman to her face. At least until she understood.

That was hard when she saw her come rushing out of the kitchen. "Emma?"

She came up to hug her and was only stopped when she held up a hand. "I'd rather we not."

Regina schooled her own expression and nodded. "Of course."

"You wouldn't happen to have any hot chocolate?"

Regina managed a smile. "I do, and cinnamon."

Her mother lead her into the kitchen and Emma sat at the island. "Henry says that Mary Margaret likes it that way."

"Where do you think she picked up the taste."

"So... evil stepmother?"

"That's how the book tells it." Regina said carefully.

"It does explain why you were so against me watching Disney movies as a girl."

"I didn't like the lessons they taught." Her mother wasn't looking at her.

"Or how you were killed falling off a cliff?" Emma asked with a small smile. She caught sight of a slight smile on Regina's face.

"Really, chased by dwarfs? Have you met them?"

"I have. I can see your point."

Her mother chuckled, but Emma remembered why she was here. "There are rumors... around town... that you've got your magic back."

With a grand sweep of her hand purple smoke appeared and a plate of cookies was revealed.

"Well that's rather domestic. I take it not all of your magic is about cookie making?"

Regina was smiling but stopped. Emma felt a little guilty, but not that guilty.

"People are worried you are going to hurt them."

"And you want me to promise I won't?"

"Well, normally I wouldn't expect to have to extract such a promise. But apparently you stole me from my crib because my mother was prettier than you."

"That wasn't the reason."

"Well that's good. Vanity is a poor excuse for child abduction." Emma said testily.

Regina exhaled. "Your mother took something from me. Someone from me. It was revenge at first, but Emma, you are my daughter and I love you. More than anything you can know. I don't know that I could stand it if you hated me."

Emma watched her eyes, she'd become quite the good judge of a liar working as a trial lawyer.

"I don't hate you. But for now that will have to be a start." Regina nodded. "I can't make this town play by the rules of this world if you are threatening to go all evil witch on them."

Regina stiffened. "I was a queen."

"And a witch."

"They are not mutually exclusive." Her mother said as she watched her. "I just wanted you to be my little princess."

The affectionate nickname of her youth carried so much more meaning now. Would she ever be able to smile at it again?

"If you want me to give you a chance you need to try to be the woman I know. Just... be Mayor Mills for a while? Let me sort out my anger?"

Regina's eyes were watering and Emma thought she might have seen a tear. She'd never seen her mother cry. But she nodded.

"I can try."


	3. Chapter 3

Emma Mills gave up on thinking this town could still be normal somewhere around the time that she had to prosecute Goldilocks for breaking and entering. But even if she couldn't get normal she could get routine. Henry went to school, and he learned about science and math as well as about ogre wars and dynastic succession. People still went to work. Her mother to the mayor's office and people even let her terrorize them with city ordinances mostly because she wasn't terrorizing them with fireballs or... ripping their hearts from their chests.

Something she still wasn't sure she believed.

But she was also coming to understand that just because she didn't believe it didn't make the thing go away. Like her birth parents driving need to be part of her life and or her mother the Evil Queen's desperate need for her forgiveness. Or the fact that the only thing stopping the three of them from starting a civil war was the fact that she didn't want it.

So she was a peace keeper.

Which given her naturally combative personality had some comic value.

She finished her work in the DA's office early that day to pick Henry up from school before the big evening. "Why are we still calling it Miner's Day? The nuns aren't nuns and the dwarfs are... well I guess they're miners but you know."

"I suppose Dwarfs Day sounds a bit too much like an awareness day for short people," Emma said with a shrug glad that no one was around to hear that particular explanation. "Your grandmothers have managed to sit in a room together long enough to agree to kick off the festival together. I think Regina is even going to use magic."

Regina. It sounded wrong. She was mom, but saying it now felt wrong given how angry she was at her. And every time she did it, it looked like Mary Margaret was in physical pain. So for now it was Regina.

"I thought she wasn't using magic." Henry said carefully, he wanted to see some but he was also afraid of it.

"I think we've agreed that parlor tricks don't count against her."

"What are parlor tricks?"

Emma smiled, "Entertainment. Like card tricks."

But what Regina did for the opening of the festival was a lot more than card tricks. It was a fireworks show beyond anything Emma had ever seen when she was living in Boston. She stood on the stage between Mary Margaret and Regina while the latter worked her hands and the sky illuminated with explosions for nearly half an hour. Emma couldn't help but smile. Henry was grinning from ear to ear, and she thought she even saw Mary Margaret look happy.

Emma leaned in to whisper in her ear, "She's showing off."

"Of course she is, but let her. She doesn't get to very often and she's trying to impress you."

When it was over the crowd clapped more than could be expected for the Evil Queen, but less than she probably deserved. The same stoic expression returned to her face and she bowed until Henry squeezed her hand and a smile broke again.

"Encore!" An older woman in the audience shouted and the voice seemed to cut through the crowd like it was projected from a loudspeaker. And her mother froze and looked terrified. More so than when Emma had been learning to drive in the Benz. The woman approached the stage and looked up at the group. Emma noticed that Mary Margaret had gone ghost white. "Hello Regina."

Regina took a step forward, so she was standing in front of the group. "What are you doing here, mother?"

* * *

Cora Mills was sitting in one of the chairs by the fire in Regina's office taking the entire thing in while Emma, the Charmings and Regina stood a united front in each staring directly at her. Not that Emma knew who this woman was other than clearly her mother's mother. Her mother for her part looked like she wanted to shake like a leaf and Mary Margaret was cold and took the lead in questioning.

"How did you get here?"

"Oh dear, Snow, there is no need to be confrontational. It's quite simple. Once my daughter's curse broke here I was able to find a certain pirate captain who procured a magical bean for me."

"Wait, a magic... bean?" Emma asked.

"It's a thing." David Nolan answered.

"You came by bean?" Regina asked, it was the first she'd spoken in forever.

"No, I'm afraid not. The good captain was a bit of a scoundrel and double crossed me."

"So he's dead somewhere," Regina said matter of factly.

"I think he'd probably prefer he was dead. I gave him over to a certain squid woman who was delighted to see him again."

"So how did you get here Mother?" Regina's voice was tense and Emma was still trying to figure out the dynamics here.

"Well next there was a business involving some shoes from Oz and a white witch... "

"Let me guess... also dead?"

"Maybe. One hears nasty things about what flying monkey bites do."

Regina rolled her eyes and Cora shot her a raised eyebrow.

"Out with it mother. How did you get here."

"Oh, eventually, I kidnapped a rabbit."

"A rabbit?" Emma asked.

This time it was Regina's turn to answer. "Wonderland. It's a thing."

"Where is the rabbit now?" Mary Margaret asked.

"Oh, around, somewhere I should think. He said he had a family so presumably he's running back to it."

"He's not dead?" Mary Margaret asked again. After all dead or worse than dead seemed to be a theme in this story.

"Probably." Cora answered.

"Maybe." Regina clarified for the others.

"Regina, why are you so hostile. I was hoping for a much warmer reception... and I understand that this is my grandchild. And that somewhere around I have a great grandchild."

"Stay away from my family." Snow white said clearly. "Whatever you are up to you should have stayed in Wonderland."

"But my dear Snow, all I want to do is make things right with my daughter." Cora smiled at Regina, "And I understand that's what you want from your daughter as well."

Emma glanced at Regina and her mother looked unlike she'd ever seen her before. Her mother, the great and terrible Evil Queen, looked like a frightened child.


	4. Chapter 4

This time everyone wanted to lock the new sorceress in town up. Which really made Emma think she needed to hold remedial lessons on the rule of law and due process for the entire town. But in the end it hadn't been an argument settled by either Emma's appeals to the law or this time by her shot gun, but by a simple fact that overshadowed her own mother's freedom of movement.

They had no way to hold Cora Mills against her will.

Regina pulled Emma aside by the arm, almost desperately. "I need you to promise you will be careful around my mother. Especially with Henry. She's here for a reason and she's more dangerous than you can imagine."

"She sounds a lot like you, mom."

Regina flinched, but continued. "I mean it Emma. I... might have been bad. But all mother is interested in is power and her family has always been the chief way she knew to achieve it. Once she figures out that you are the Savior she'll immediately try to find some way to use that."

"Is this the time we finally have a conversation about what you thought you were doing with me?"

Regina glanced over at her mother and back at her. "If you want we can talk about it but not here."

Emma folded her arms.

"Please just listen to me Emma, just this once." Regina's voice was desperate now and Emma's eyes fixed on her realizing for the first time just how frightened her mother was.

She'd never seen her mother frightened. Not even when the mob came for her. "Alright. Come on, I think we could both use a drink."

Emma put her hand on her mother's back and glanced back noticing that Cora was watching them as they left together.

The drive home was quiet, "Where is Henry," Regina asked somewhat concerned, "Granny's with Red. I told her I'd pick him up. I'm sure if anyone threatens them there will be crossbows involved or depending on the moon werewolves."

Regina shook her head, "New Moon. No wolves."

"Well that's something." Emma Mills wanted to laugh at the fact that 'no werewolves' was something to celebrate in her life these days. She made them both drinks, resisting the temptation to mix them stronger than she should and handed one of the heavy crystal tumblers to her mother. "Do we start with baby snatching or do we start with why you are terrified of your mother?"

Her mother gave her a look. "My mother is dangerous."

"You said. And people have been telling me that about you for weeks."

She managed a humorless chuckle and a smile. "True. But that doesn't change that it's also true about Cora."

"You've never mentioned her before." Emma said sitting down.

"I have... conflicting feelings about her. I love her. She's my mother. I hate her. She ruined my life. And she'll do it again. And ruin you and Henry in order to ruin me."

"Your mother hates you?"

"I wish it was that simple," Regina said quietly. "It's the way she shows love."

"She hurt you? I've... known for a while you showed a lot of the signs. When I was working in that first year on child abuse cases I learned a lot. I never wanted to ask." Emma said quietly.

Regina shook her head. "It was ... more who she hurt in order to teach me lessons. She ... I was in love with a man, his name was Daniel. He was strong and kind and he taught me what real true love was. He was stable boy though, and my mother was a miller's daughter and she would not have her family slip back into what she viewed as humiliating poverty. It was... well... has Snow told you anything about our past?"

Emma sat down, "Only that you saved her life when she was a little girl."

Regina nodded. "Her horse had gone wild and I heard her scream. I rode after her and was able to pull her from the horse. Her father the king was so grateful that he proposed marriage. But I didn't know that mother hand arranged it. Had known the king's party was traveling through. Had spooked her horse. Had known that he was looking for a wife..."

"But you were in love with someone already..." The horror was starting to dawn on Emma.

She nodded. "I was going to ... we were going to run away. Snow overheard us and told my mother. She'd promised," what had been a quiet sad tone turned into something bitter and angry and near inhuman for a moment, but calmed again, "My mother ripped his heart out and crushed it in front of me. Pulled me up from his body and told me I'd mourned enough and it was time to be a queen."

"Well that will fuck you up." Emma said a little numbly.

"Indeed," her mother replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Eventually I was able... with some help... to banish my mother through a looking glass to Wonderland."

"As in... rabbits... and Alice... and off with her head?"

"That would be my mother."

"Wait, my grandmother is the Queen of Hearts... like..." She made a chopping motion with her hand.

"She wasn't one for subtly."

"Says the woman they called the Evil Queen."

"Well, I never said I was either," Regina granted. "I know I promised to talk about you tonight... but can I get a night's rest and a chance to deal with the idea of my mother in town before we talk about the night of the curse?"

Emma was tempted to say no. To demand what she could while her mother was in a talking mood. But she saw one of her hands shaking and something told her not to push.

"We will have that conversation, mom."

"I know we will." Regina said with a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Emma Mills leaned down and kissed her mother on the forehead. "Try to get some sleep."

"That hasn't been likely in a while, and less tonight, but I'll try."


	5. Chapter 5

Emma Mills had found it easier to do a certain amount of her work in a corner booth at Granny's. It had always been a center of town life but as an intermediary between her parents and her mother she found that she was doing more than just keeping law and order. She'd become a symbol of some sort of normality in the town.

Which... given that she didn't feel at all normal had a certain irony.

So it was at her regular spot, a cup of coffee next to her and her lap top open on the table typing up notes for a court case involving cursed marriages and if they needed to be dissolved legally when someone sat down across from her.

"If this is about the missing cow I really don't think it jumped over the moon..."

"I should hope not, cows even back home weren't that agile."

Emma looked up to see Cora Mills smiling widely at her.

"We really didn't have a chance to speak the other night."

"Well, there was all that need to establish how many people you'd killed to get here," Emma said, closing her lap top and folding her hands in front of her.

"I see you've picked up my daughter's sharp tongue."

"It is one of my mother's better qualities." Emma felt strongly protective, "What do you want here?"

Cora raised an eyebrow and waved over to the counter. Granny came over reluctantly, "I'd like some tea please."

Granny looked at Cora for the moment and then back to Emma. "Are you alright."

"I'm fine. Just get the tea thank you."

There was a grunt from the older woman.

"Brave woman, or has this town forgotten to show respect to power. My daughter never did know how to wield hers well. I'm glad to observe that you are much better at it, Emma."

She sighed and shook her head, "Mom told me about Daniel. So perhaps we could drop the kindly grandmother act?"

"I'm sure you'd prefer I remain kindly, Emma." There was steal behind her eyes. "I have... made mistakes with my daughter in the past. But she needs me now."

That statement sent a chill down Emma's spine.

"And I rather think you and Henry need a stable family life too. You can't know how happy I was to find out I had a granddaughter." Cora reached over and squeezed her hand. Emma resisted every fiber in her being pulling it back from her.

She didn't register the bell of the door opening. "Mother, get your hand off my daughter."

"Oh are you two claiming each other again, how wonderful." Cora said in something that could never pass for sincere enthusiasm.

"Emma are you alright."

"I'm fine, Mom." Though the truth told Emma hadn't seen that look on Regina's face since she was caught with that football player under the bleachers of Storybrooke High. Only this time it wasn't directed at her.

"Regina, I was just getting to know my granddaughter. I understand she's some sort of law enforcer?"

"District Attorney." Regina said, setting her jaw, "Are you planning on staying or shall I try and find you a rabbit back home so you can terrorize the people of wonderland?"

Cora grinned, "Don't be silly Regina. I've no intention of leaving you ever again." She stood up, "Perhaps we can catch up another time Emma..."

Cora touched Regina's face before she left and the entire diner seemed to watch her leave.

"I don't like that she's taking an interest in you. Have you warned Henry?"

"That his great grandmother the Queen of Hearts is in town? Yes. He was mostly wanting to know if those magic mushrooms could make him taller.

"They can but probably not the way he'd like." Regina said with a sigh as she sat down. "I've been calling in some favors. You weren't mother's first visit. She's paying a visit to some of the less savory characters in town."

"How do you know?"

"Because most of them are just as afraid of me as they are of her."

Emma squeezed the bridge of her nose.

Regina smiled, "Mothers are complicated."

"Please tell me Henry isn't saying that to someone."

"I'm sure he will some day." Regina shrugged.

Emma sighed and tilted her head, "Are you free for dinner tonight? Renaldi's?"

"I can be." Regina said with a relieved smile. Her daughter was maybe starting to forgive her.


	6. Chapter 6

Renaldi's was a nice little Italian family style restaurant which turned out to be run by Lady and the Tramp once everyone's memories returned. Luckily they were human. And apparently always human. Which Emma supposed made the Disney movie a little awkward to watch now.

She wondered if maybe she should do some homework with those movies.

Or organize a drinking party with Ruby.

Her mother arrived right on time, and the stillness of the room when she walked in reminded Emma of exactly how much fear she carried around with her still. The waiter even called her, "Your Majesty." when she ordered a good bottle of wine.

"We're going to talk about it you know," It. The conversation they'd been avoiding.

Regina glanced up from her menu, "I assumed that was the reason for dinner."

"You are casual about baby snatching."

Regina shrugged, "I'm going to sound like a monster if I tell you that children were much more a commodity in our world. Rumple used to buy sell and trade them somewhat like used cars."

Emma shook her head, "Well at least there is no parts department."

"You'd be surprised how many spells involve baby parts." Regina said casually but seeing her daughter's face, "Not that I've ever... no. I have lines."

"That's good to know," Emma Mills said with a sigh. "Why don't you just start. They were trying to send me through a wardrobe, and you got their first?"

"I did. Rumple told me that you were the key to breaking my curse. And ... I'd only just won and I'd sacrificed so much. One more murder seemed like a small price after what I'd done to cast the curse." Emma made a mental note that was another subject for another time. "I though... killing a baby. But there were you were and you were in my arms and ... I couldn't."

"The big bad Evil Queen couldn't kill a baby?"

"I couldn't kill you and I couldn't do it to Snow. Though if you tell her that I'll deny it." Regina added quickly. "I thought ... as I was holding you in my arms I thought how beautiful you were and I couldn't imagine hurting you. And the curse hit and we arrived here and you were my daughter. And I tried to love you as best I could. I knew I wasn't good enough for you. But I promise you Emma I'd have moved the realms for you."

"You'd done it once for less noble reasons."

"I'm not going to defend or justify my life Emma. I am who I am." And for once Emma looking across at her mother could imagine her a queen.

"You are defending and justifying your life to me, Mom."

Regina looked away.

"Have you thought that perhaps your mother wants the same thing? For her daughter?"

Regina sighed. "My mother..."

Emma shook her head, "You know, stop. I'm willing to listen to you and to try and understand you. But I'm really not willing to have the murderer tell me that she's the good one and that other murder is the bad one."

"Please Emma, you have to listen to me. Or if not me please listen to Mary Margaret." Emma grew quiet at that statement. She'd never imagined her mother ever advising her to speak to her birth mother. "Or even read the book."

"The book says I defeat you."

"You did." Regina said flatly. "I'd do anything for you. Anything."

"Alright. You want to show me that you aren't the Evil Queen. That I should trust you?" Emma looked at her directly. "Tell me what you did to me."

"We just..."

"No... tell me what you did to me." Emma held out her hand and a flicker of flames appeared there.

Regina gasped, "You have magic..."

From a corner, sitting in a shadow that neither Mills woman could see, Cora smiled.


	7. Chapter 7

Emma Mills watched as her mother pushed the coffin to the side and revealed a set of stairs in the family mausoleum. "Mom, could this be a tad less creepy? I mean why couldn't your secret vault of evil magic be you know... in the basement next to the poor table?"

"Dark Magic is rarely pretty and you'll understand in a minute why I it wasn't in the house you grew up." Regina snapped her fingers and little flames appeared on candles lining the hallways casting an eerie light. Emma walked behind her the sound of their shoes against the stone and tile but quiet enough that she could hear her heart beating.

Or rather...

"Mom are those..." She stopped in horror as she heard the thumping hearts. Regina turned around a little guilty stricken at the look on Emma's face before waving her hand and the sound muffled.

Regina looked over her shoulder and stopped, turning around and inhaling while biting her lower lip, "Yes." She waved her hand and the sound was muffled.

Emma turned and looked at her, "You... have a collection of still beating _hearts?_ Are they trophies?"

"Emma..."

"Are. They. Trophies?" Emma looked at Regina demanding an answer.

"Not exactly. They are enchanted hearts they have the ability to control the living, and can be used to raise the dead to be used ..."

"Oh because that makes it so much better. Slavery and the ability to use your victims as a zombie horde? How many are there?"

Regina waved her hand and the sound muffled. "I took so many it was impossible to keep track."

Emma turned around and walked back towards the exit.

"Please Emma... wait."

Something in her mother's pleading voice made her stop.

"I'm ... I know I'm a monster. I have done terrible things. Unspeakable things. And I know I can't hold onto you and make you understand. I can't make you love me. I don't want to do that. You will always be my daughter even if you can't deal with this." Regina gestured around them to the vault. "I want to do better. I want to be better. I want ... I want to redeem myself."

Emma looked around, at the wall of boxes, at the mirrors, at just about anything but her mother for a moment. "You are the Evil Queen. Really."

Regina stiffened, took a deep breath, "That was a title I was called. I was always the queen. Snow White is the one who put evil to my name."

Emma gave her an incredulous look and with both hands gestured to the wall of now muffled hearts.

"Not without reason." Regina admitted.

"You said this place wasn't in the basement because what you didn't want me to find out who you were. Who I was?"

"I never wanted you to know any of this." She shook her head, "When I was twelve I accidently opened up the entrance to my mother's vault. I found myself in a room like this with hundreds of hearts. Glowing around me. The entrance closed behind me and I couldn't get out. I ... was there for hours. I tried to cover my ears." As she spoke her voice became quieter. "My mother came to get me. It was late at night and she told me that she left me down there through dinner as a lesson in knowing my place. After that I couldn't not hear the hearts. They were constant. That was when I started to spend as much time as I could outside of the house."

Emma stared at her mother. "Did you ... were you trying to live up to some sort of monster ideal?"

Regina shook her head sadly, "Believe it or not I never wanted to be like her."

Emma nodded finally understanding, "And yet that's exactly what you became." She'd encountered enough abuse victims to recognize the cycle.

Regina shrugged and nodded for Emma to follow her into the main room of the vault. She ran her hand along the spine of several books until she found the right one and flipped through the pages.

"Really? Reference books?"

Regina raised an eyebrow, "You have law books to help you do your job."

Emma pursed her lips, "Okay, I'll accept evil witch is a job of sorts."

Her mother gave her a look and Emma was in some ways relieved that she wasn't entirely cowering. "Magic is many things, but hardly easy or simple." She seemed to find the page she was looking for and read it over twice before holding the book up and blowing across the page. To Emma's shock the words lifted and drifted across the space between them and she began to glow. Emma looked at her own hand in shock but Regina's eyes went wide.

"What is it, mom?"

"No one did anything to you Emma. You have... " And Regina broke out in a wide grin, "You have the most extraordinary light magic I've ever seen. Of course you do... you're the Savior."

The S word was something they'd both avoided. "Where did it come from?"

Regina shrugged. "If I was to take a guess... your parents love."

"But aren't there like ... other true love couples around? Is Ashley's baby going to start spouting rainbow poop?"

Regina shook her head, "Snow and her Prince aren't ..." It almost physically pained Regina to say it, "They're love for each other isn't even ordinary by extraordinary measures."

"So what do I do about this magic?" She looked around the room again, full of creepy objects and seeped with darkness.

"Whatever you want to do with it, Emma. Magic doesn't define you. It's part of you." Regina took hold of her shoulders, "Evil isn't born. It's made. And you have a choice in what you make of yourself."

"But you..."

Regina smiled sadly, "I am who I made myself."

Emma tilted her head, "Than remake yourself, mom. You say you want to redeem yourself. Do it."

"It's not that simple."

"No." Emma agreed. "But if you could make yourself a monster you can make yourself a hero."

Regina raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't believe in heroes."

Emma shrugged, "I didn't believe in magic either. Clearly I'm an idiot. We can learn to redefine ourselves together." And after a moment she wrapped her arms around her mother. Regina was surprised and momentarily flustered, before she wrapped her arms around her daughter holding the back of her head.

"I can try."


End file.
